


Smells Like Denial

by luceluceluceluce



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, feelings are hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luceluceluceluce/pseuds/luceluceluceluce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthday fic for JumpingJackFlash.</p><p>In which feelings are hard, relationships are complicated, and Seers spend a lot of time laughing at Knights.</p><p>[On hiatus until further notice.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JumpingJackFlash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JumpingJackFlash/gifts).



> It's three days early but I've rewritten this literally five times and I just want to put it up before I end up rewriting it yet again.  
> If you haven't checked out JumpingJackFlash's fics yet, go do it, because he is one of my very favorite fic writers and an all-around awesome guy.
> 
> Keep in mind that the rating is likely to change later on! I'll let you know if/when it does.

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are currently sitting in the middle of Bean Street.

Normally you would be worried that your ass was getting smudged with chalk, but apparently god tier pajamas are chalk-proof, so you remain unconcerned as you hunch over yourself slightly to add a yellow outline to a stately-looking can of pickled onions. From the other side of the lab, you can hear the Mayor shuffling around, but it’s otherwise silent- you and Terezi (well, mostly Terezi) had chosen one of the most out-of-the-way labs to convert to Can Town II, and had then blocked off the main door so that the only entrance or exit was through a narrow back hallway. Your many jokes about Narnia and Neverland had been lost on her, but you continue making them anyway.

You finish your carefully lopsided chalk outline and stand, stretching. The Mayor glances up at you, the majority of his chalk-dusted body hidden behind an ambitious fortress of cans and Faygo. You remind yourself to think of a suitably awesome name for it later.

“I’m gonna go find our favorite blind psychopath,” you tell him. “Later, bro.”

He blinks in your general direction, and then adds a can of tomato sauce to the front wall. Typical of the Mayor- duty to the town always comes first.

You wander out of the lab and down the dim back hallway. Most of the hallways and rooms of the meteor are dim, aside from a few rooms that Rose frequents, but you’ve gotten used to maneuvering in semi-darkness after almost two years. You try not to remember the first few weeks, when everything was chaotic and unfamiliar and the labyrinth of darkened hallways sent you tripping over your own feet more often than you cared to admit.

You follow the familiar route back up toward the central labs. Terezi likes to hang out near the kitchens sometimes, or, if there’s a dream bubble nearby, on the roof. The kitchens are close enough, if you take the right shortcuts- you’re just about to turn into yet another gloomy, cramped hallway that will take you right there when you hear a noise.

You freeze instantly, straining your ears for the sound. The faint clacking of a keyboard, a tiny whisper of fabric. It’s coming from one of the many small, seemingly useless rooms of the meteor, and you creep toward it silently.

The door is slightly ajar, just wide enough for you to peer through. The room is even darker than the hallway you stand in, but you can just barely make out a familiar figure hunched against the far wall. A mop of scruffy hair, slightly bloodshot eyes, a thick black shirt two sizes too big; Karkat Vantas is huddled with his laptop on his knees, determinedly tapping away. The light of the screen gives his face a washed-out glow, and you can see how his eyes are slightly narrowed, brow furrowed, his lips pressed tightly together. If it were anyone else you would be sure something was very wrong, but with Karkat, that sort of expression could mean anything. Maybe he had just received word that his death was imminent, or, more likely, he couldn’t find a good download link for one of his shitty troll romcoms.

You wonder if you can make some sort of snarky remark comparing Karkat to a hermit crab- Karkat likely wouldn’t get the joke, but would that really matter?- when suddenly, Karkat snuffles quietly, his shoulders hunching a fraction of an inch more. You squint through the darkness as a single pink tear runs down Karkat’s cheek.

Well, fuck.

You blink, suddenly out of sorts. You might be a dick, but you aren’t the sort of dick who made fun of crying people, even if Karkat’s tears did look completely ridiculous. Who cried in pink, anyway?

You shake yourself out of that particular line of thought just in time to see Karkat glance up in your direction.

Double fuck.

“Wha- Strider?!” Karkat’s voice is slightly thicker than usual, and you wince inwardly- he really had been crying. Goddammit. “What the fuck are you doing? How long have you-” Karkat swallowed hard, setting his laptop (didn’t trolls call them husky-tops or something? You could never remember) to the side, and standing with the same jerky, not-quite-human movements that all trolls seemed to have in common. It makes you think of a praying mantis.

“Sup,” You manage, and instantly regret it. Karkat bares his teeth, fists clenching.

“I’m going to repeat myself because apparently your pathetic human ears didn’t pick it up the first time,” he growls, “but what the _fuck_ are you doing here?”

“Just passing through,” You shrug in the most casual way you can manage. “Just taking a romantic stroll through the hallways with me, myself and I. Couldn’t help but notice you looking like someone had just stepped on your hamster, lip quivering like a schoolgirl from the animes-”

“I’m not even going to ask what that means.” Karkat places a hand on the doorframe in a way he probably thinks is casual, but you can see his claws digging into the wood. “Now unless you’re going to preform some sort of awe-inspiring miracle and actually say something useful, you can fuck off.”

“Right, yeah, I’ll leave you to your sobfest-”

A hand shoots out before you even realize what’s happening, and suddenly he has a fistful of your shirt. “I said fuck off, Strider.”

“I’m trying, but apparently you feel the need to practically rip my goddamn clothes off of me.”

His fist unclenches slowly, his claws catching on the fabric. Thank god for god tier tear-proof cloth. “Fine, then,” He practically spits. “Go.”

You look up from inspecting your shirt to meet his eyes, trying to think up a good last remark to throw at him before you go. You’ve got a reputation of being Mr. Punchline, after all, and you can hardly abscond without a good closing quip.

Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly hard to think when there’s an extremely emotional, short-tempered troll about three inches from your face. You can see a bit of pinkish-red still clinging to his eyelashes, a blotchy flush across his face- a combination of anger, embarrassment, and the leftover tears, you guess. His lips are still bared back in a scowl, and you can count every one of his sharp, jagged fangs.

You make the mistake of inhaling, and are greeted with a nearly overpowering whiff of _Karkat-_ he smells rich and spicy and completely inhuman, and suddenly your mouth is dry.

“Right,” you say, forcing yourself to swallow. “Later.”

He grumbles something you can’t quite catch- you suspect it might not even have been English- and you force yourself to walk at a measured, even pace down the hall. You can feel his eyes on your back, but you don’t turn around.

You eventually find Terezi in one of the storage labs, playing with an alchemiter. She turns to you, grinning ear to ear, in a ridiculous feathered hat and thigh-high boots that appear to be capable of shooting missiles.

“Coolkid! You’ve been talking to Karkat.” It’s a statement, not a question, so you don’t respond to it. Instead you steal her hat and inspect it. Each of the feathers on the brim is tipped with a barb of poison.

“The Mayor’s been working on a fortress,” you say at last, placing the hat carefully back on her head. “Whose turn is it to name shit?”

“Yours,” she says absentmindedly, fiddling with the settings on the alchemiter. “I named the Honorable Court Of Blueberry Slurpees yesterday.”

“Awesome. I hereby dub it Fort Cocks.”

“We already had a Fort Cocks.” Terezi presses a few more buttons and suddenly a baseball cap made entirely of jelly appears on the platform. It holds it’s shape for only a moment before it splatters into a purple mess. “You knocked it over when you tried to turn part of it into a sports arena, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Damn.” You hoist yourself up onto one of the many storage boxes. “How about Fort Worthless?”

“How very metaphorical.” Terezi laughs one of her vaguely terrifying, shrill laughs, and then abruptly sobers. “So what did Karkat say?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” You lower your voice into an exaggeration of Karkat’s growl. “ _I constantly have my own foot up my ass and I’m going to take it out on the world by making up unbelievably stupid insults. Also humans are dumb and stuff._ ”

Terezi rolls her eyes at you. Or at least, you think she does- it’s hard to tell when they’re pure red. “I can smell your lies, coolkid. Don’t try to pull one over on me.”

“Terezi, use your nonexistent vision to look deep into my eyes. Sniff at my pure, virgin soul and tell me I’m a liar.”

“Can I lick your eyes instead?”

“Nice try, but no.”

She grins one of her toothy shark grins again, and then turns back to the alchemiter. After several hours of fucking around, you finally manage to create a jelly baseball cap that holds it’s shape. You wear it all day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second part of this fic comes to you a day before Jesse's actual birthday. I am obviously very good at this.

Your name is Dave Strider, have eaten nothing but Doritos and unbelievably shitty coffee for the last three days. Your hunger for something that is not 90% processed flavoring has finally outweighed your laziness, and you find yourself in the kitchen with a stack of alchemized ingredients. You had figured out within the first few days of living on the meteor that the alchemiter is only good for making simple foods- apples or gushers are easy enough, but the last time you tried to alchemize a lasagna you were presented with something oozing and smelling vaguely of sulfur.

You’ve decided to make macaroni and cheese. And not the packaged Kraft Dinner shit, either- no, you’re going all out, with an actual cheese grater and good-quality noodles and everything. You fill a pot with water and set it on the stove, spending an annoyingly long time fiddling with the unfamiliar dials before you can be fairly certain it’s working. You dump the noodles in carelessly and get to work grating the cheese.

The hallway door swings open with a soft creak, but you don’t look up. You’re fairly sure if you let your attention waver for an instant you’re going to end up grating off your fingers.

Footsteps approach- quiet and slow, as if the owner doesn’t want you to notice them. That rules out Terezi and the Mayor, you think, checking two boxes off of your mental list. You’re fairly sure Terezi has never tiptoed in her life, and the Mayor hardly ever leaves Can Town. Duty to his people, and all that.

It can’t be Rose, either- if she wanted to talk to you, she would walk right in and start stabbing you with carefully worded sarcasm. Anyway, you know the scent of her perfume well enough to identify it from across a room.

That leaves only a few possibilities- Karkat, Kanaya, or maybe even Gamzee. Waiting until you were alone, trying to get a jump on you…

You whirl around quickly, suddenly certain that you’re moments away from being clubbed to death by an insane juggalo, only to find Karkat half-crouched behind one of the counters. You exhale slowly and resist the urge to curse under your breath.

“I know I have the most choice ass on this chunk of rock, bro, but a picture will last longer,” you quip in a carefully not-panicked voice, turning back to your grating. Through some miracle, your fingers are still intact.

Karkat huffs behind you, and you hear a rustle as he hoists himself up onto one of the counters. “You’re wearing a cape, fucktard. I couldn’t see your ass if I tried, even though I’m not, because I’d rather not have my perception orbs liquefy and dribble out of their sockets.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the raging bullshit coming out of your mouth.” You finish grating the block of cheese with only minor casualties and turn back to the noodles.

“It must be difficult to hear properly, due to your long-standing campaign of seeing how far you can stuff your own head up your ass. By the way, congratulations, you just won. I’ll notify the award committee immediately, and give them my condolences as they stab themselves repeatedly with the record book.” His comebacks are instantaneous, even quicker than Rose. You almost feel a tiny glimmer of respect, but then you remember that he’s a raging idiot. Emphasis on raging. Also on idiot.

“What are you even doing here? You’re stinking up the whole kitchen.”

“I’ve come to make sure you don’t burn the place down and doom us all to a miserable fiery death.”

“Well, hate to break it to you,” you give the noodles one last stir, switch off the stove, and pick up the pot. “Your job here is done.”

You bring the pot to the sink, which is unfortunately close to where Karkat is sitting. You can’t help but glance at him from behind your shades as you drain the pot. He sits with a slump so pronounced he’s practically doubled over, elbows resting on his thighs. He watches your every move closely, though you can’t tell if it’s due to curiosity or if he actually is concerned that you’ll somehow burn the meteor down with a pot of noodles.

You wonder for a moment if you actually could, but decide you’d probably need something more flammable than a kitchen counter.

“What’s that supposed to be?” He asks, as you add the freshly-grated cheddar.

“Noodles and cheese.” You toss in a generous dollop of butter, and sprinkle pepper over the top. You could probably be a gourmet chef.

Suddenly, Karkat leans over the pot and sniffs. You yank it away.

“Dude, watch it. You’re giving my noodles a light dusting of troll dandruff. Santa won’t go near the shit, you’ve officially ruined Christmas.”

Karkat pulls away, wrinkling his nose. “That doesn’t even smell edible.”

“You have no idea how delicious this is going to be. Prepare yourself, because I’m about to initiate a goddamn symphony on your tastebuds. The flute solo in the second act brings grown men to tears.”

You fish two mostly clean plates out of the cupboard and separate out the noodles. You hadn’t actually planned on sharing, but you’ve got more than enough, and it’ll be worth it to prove Karkat wrong. You hand him a fork and push the plate toward him. He lifts it and sniffs again, his nose wrinkling further. You take a bite off of your own plate. Fuck yes, it’s delicious. You are officially a culinary master.

Karkat spears a single noodle with his fork and lifts it to his mouth. You watch the way he wets his lips before parting them, placing the noodle onto his tongue with exaggerated care. He chews, swallows.

“Well?” you prompt.

Karkat shrugs, looking carefully unimpressed. “You’ve failed in your mission to poison us both.”

“No use denying it. I’m the goddamn Mozart of mac n cheese.” You stuff another forkful into your mouth. “Before you ask, there isn’t actually a chorus of angels. That’s just a common mental side affect, it’ll go away soon.”

“It’s not that fucking great, Strider,” he mutters, but he takes another forkful anyway.

“Yeah right.” You watch Karkat take a third bite, and feel almost giddy. One point for Strider. The crowd goes wild. “I can already see the tears in your eyes, you’re two seconds away from reenacting the sobfest from the other day -” wait, fuck, you hadn’t meant to say that.

Karkat stiffens slightly, and then, with exaggerated care, sets his fork back onto the plate. “I just remembered I don’t enjoy eating meowbeast vomit.” His jaw is tight, and you feel like you’ve just been punched in the gut. You wonder if you should apologize.

“Vantas-”

“Fuck off, Strider.” He slips off the counter and starts out of the kitchen. You set your plate down hurriedly and trail after him.

“Hold your shit, Vantas, I didn’t actually-”

He whirls on you, bristling, and you resist the urge to cower back. “What part of _fuck off_ does your pathetic human brain not understand?”

His eyebrows are knitted together, his cheeks stretched by his scowl. He’s gotten taller since you first saw him- still shorter than you, but you can no longer tower over him the way you used to. He’s a spring coiled too tight, ready to lash out at the first thing that disturbs him.

He’s afraid.

You wonder, for the first time, what it was he was crying about.

“Karkat.” Your voice is softer than you intended.

“You’re the most miserable excuse for a human being I’ve ever had the displeasure of laying my perception orbs on, Strider.” He practically spits out each word. “The simple fact that you exist lowers the collective IQ of all of paradox space. Every time I start to think that maybe you actually have the capacity to do something that isn’t bile-inducing, you make a conscious effort to prove me wrong until I’m tempted to gouge out my own intestines just to spare myself the displeasure of knowing I created a universe that led to your existence. You’re _filth,”_ it takes all of your control not to wince back from the sheer hatred packed into such a small word, “and I deeply regret every moment I have wasted on dealing with your bullshit.”

For a long moment, you’re honestly speechless. Your chest feels tight. You’ve dealt with plenty of shit during SBURB- watching your friends and family die, tearing apart the very bonds of the universe, fighting monsters that shouldn’t, in any sane world, exist. But in all that time, you’ve never had so much intense, coherent hate directed straight at you.

And now Karkat is just standing, hands at his sides, staring at you. He looks slightly deflated, as if he used up all of his rage.

You pull back your fist and punch him square in the face.

He goes down hard, unprepared. Well, of course he isn’t prepared- you aren’t a punches kind of guy. There was that one time you did a suplex on him, which was hilarious, but you’ve never seriously tried to cause damage.

To his credit, he sits up quickly, hand darting to his face. A trickle of blood runs from his nose, and you can already tell his cheek is going to be good and swollen in a few hours.

“What the fuck, Strider!”

You don’t answer. You’re breathing quickly through your nose, doing your best to calm down. You can’t exactly write off punching your friend (can you actually consider him a friend? After what he just said, and what you just did?) in the face as an ironic thing. 

He clambers to his feet, wiping at the blood. His eyes flick back to you, and for a moment you think he’s going to punch you back. You ready yourself, raising your hands slightly and positioning your feet. You can probably take him. He might have more experience with close range weapons, but you’re a god, and that has to count for something.

He takes you by surprise, though- his arms reach out with a single, jerky, too-fast movement, both hands latching onto the front of your shirt. You try to swat him away, but his grip is firm, and his claws dig into the fabric.

You suddenly realize that his face is uncomfortably close to yours. He’s breathing just as fast as you are, his entire face tinted red, lips parted slightly. He looks _dangerous,_ with his inhuman eyes and vicious fangs. Your heart pounds.

He yanks you roughly forward, but you’re too distracted by his tongue as it licks nervously at his bottom lip to resist.

And then, all of a sudden, he kisses you.


End file.
